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The Short Life and Happy Times of the Shmoo
The adorable squash-shaped character was so popular it immediately spawned the largest merchandising craze in the nation's history. In the words of Life magazine, the nation was "Shmoo-struck." The Short Life and Happy Times of the Shmoo collects, for the first time in one volume, Capp's essential comic strips about the Shmoo. This is Al Capp and his incisive social criticism at its best.
143 pages, Hardcover
First published September 11, 2002
About the author
Al Capp
142 books7 followersAlfred Gerald Caplin (1909-1979), better known as Al Capp, was an American cartoonist and humorist. He is best known as the creator, writer and artist of the satirical comic strip Li'l Abner, which run for 43 years from 1934 to 1977.
Capp was born in 1909 in New Haven, Connecticut, of a poor family of East European Jewish heritage. His childhood was scared by a serious accident: after being run over by a trolley car, nine years old Alfred had his left leg partially amputated. This early trauma possibly had an impact on Capp's cynical humour, as later represented in his strips. His father, Otto Philip Caplin, a failed businessman and an amateur cartoonist, is credited for introducing Al and his two brothers to making comics.
After some training in art schools in New England, in 1932 Al Capp moved to New York with the intent of becoming a newspaper cartoonist. The same year he married Catherine Wingate Cameron. In the first couple of years of his career Capp worked as an assistant/ghost artist on Ham Fischer's strip 'Joe Palooka', while preparing to pitch his own comic strips to the newspaper syndicate.
His strip Li'l Abner was launched on Monday, August 13, 1934, in eight American newspapers to immediate success. The comic started as an hillibilly slapstick, then shifted over the year in the direction of satire, black humor and social commentary. The strip run until 1977, written and mostly drawn by Capp.
A lifelong chain smoker, All Capp died in 1979 from emphysema at his home in South Hampton, New Hampshire.
Capp was born in 1909 in New Haven, Connecticut, of a poor family of East European Jewish heritage. His childhood was scared by a serious accident: after being run over by a trolley car, nine years old Alfred had his left leg partially amputated. This early trauma possibly had an impact on Capp's cynical humour, as later represented in his strips. His father, Otto Philip Caplin, a failed businessman and an amateur cartoonist, is credited for introducing Al and his two brothers to making comics.
After some training in art schools in New England, in 1932 Al Capp moved to New York with the intent of becoming a newspaper cartoonist. The same year he married Catherine Wingate Cameron. In the first couple of years of his career Capp worked as an assistant/ghost artist on Ham Fischer's strip 'Joe Palooka', while preparing to pitch his own comic strips to the newspaper syndicate.
His strip Li'l Abner was launched on Monday, August 13, 1934, in eight American newspapers to immediate success. The comic started as an hillibilly slapstick, then shifted over the year in the direction of satire, black humor and social commentary. The strip run until 1977, written and mostly drawn by Capp.
A lifelong chain smoker, All Capp died in 1979 from emphysema at his home in South Hampton, New Hampshire.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
December 15, 2025
Great overview of this unique comic creation! Protean and able to conform to our desires; the Shmoo seems to me to be a veiled criticism of a society that has too much. They can assume almost any type of food that we want and are very eager for us to eat them! A very interesting and original concept!
April 3, 2008
When it came to producing comic strip storylines and illustrations that were, ss the good folks of Dogpatch might've put it, "just a mite tetched", Al Capp was no slouch. Many of his classic and strips contained jaw-dropping elements that would have more than done justice to even the most reliably demented cartoonists of today: a family new to Dogpatch faces discrimination because they have square eyes; an elderly woman (Mammy Yokum, actually) suddenly faints while visiting a friend, wakes up feeling much better, and leaves - not realizing until fifteen years later that she'd had a baby, which the neighbor had raised as her own; a live and conscious pig is dumped unceremoniously into a stew pot; a Russian boxer named Boomchik terrorizes her fellow (literally) boxers because they're not allowed to hit a lady; Abner's and Daisy Mae's infant son, overhearing his mother saying something extraordinarily stupid, spells IDIOT with his alphabet blocks...such is the world of Li'l Abner - and with his creation of the Shmoo, Al Capp reached the pinnacle of ingenious insanity.
The title says it all: these armless, whiskery, corpulent and extremely cheerful little critters, smuggled to Dogpatch from their native Lower Slobovia, have but one desire: to serve man, by literally serving themselves - as a meal! Look sideways at a Shmoo with the slightest expression of hunger, and it'll launch itself into the nearest pot or pan and die of sheer happiness, with a blissful expression on its face. When boiled, they taste like chicken; when fried, they taste like steak...and if you're craving dessert, your Shmoo du jour will be positively ecstatic to lay a birthday cake for you, complete with candles, before it skips merrily into the pot or pan. And before they gambol off into That Great Cookbook In The Sky, they'll be sure to remind you thst their eyes make the most attractive buttons, and that their whiskers can't be beat as toothpicks! Life is easy when the Shmoo are around; the only trouble is...well, read the book! Great fun!!
The title says it all: these armless, whiskery, corpulent and extremely cheerful little critters, smuggled to Dogpatch from their native Lower Slobovia, have but one desire: to serve man, by literally serving themselves - as a meal! Look sideways at a Shmoo with the slightest expression of hunger, and it'll launch itself into the nearest pot or pan and die of sheer happiness, with a blissful expression on its face. When boiled, they taste like chicken; when fried, they taste like steak...and if you're craving dessert, your Shmoo du jour will be positively ecstatic to lay a birthday cake for you, complete with candles, before it skips merrily into the pot or pan. And before they gambol off into That Great Cookbook In The Sky, they'll be sure to remind you thst their eyes make the most attractive buttons, and that their whiskers can't be beat as toothpicks! Life is easy when the Shmoo are around; the only trouble is...well, read the book! Great fun!!
August 17, 2009
A charming satire on capitalism and the industrial state.
This book collects Li'l Abner comic strips from 1948 and 1959. Both sets feature the shmoo -- an adorable little bowling-pin-shaped creature that provides for all human needs. A mere hungry look from a human will make a shmoo keel over and die of happiness, whereupon it may be cooked to taste like steak, pork, or chicken. Its hide can be used for leather or planks for building, depending on how thick you slice it. While alive, a shmoo will produce eggs, butter, fruit, and cake on the merest suggestion, and also make a wonderful pet and entertainer. Shmoos also apparently shag like rabbits. This presents a problem for America's capitalists: nobody needs their products or wages anymore. So they send out assassins to exterminate all shmoos.
It's wonderful to see the 1948 and the 1959 series back to back. The plot is similar in each case, but the flavor of each is distinctive. The first time shmoos appear, they are a threat to Gilded Age tycoons; this is an old-fashioned Progressive or New Deal parable. The second time, however, they are a threat to the military-industrial state. The president, who looks suspiciously like Eisenhower from the back, calls on the Pentagon to eliminate the threat.
This book collects Li'l Abner comic strips from 1948 and 1959. Both sets feature the shmoo -- an adorable little bowling-pin-shaped creature that provides for all human needs. A mere hungry look from a human will make a shmoo keel over and die of happiness, whereupon it may be cooked to taste like steak, pork, or chicken. Its hide can be used for leather or planks for building, depending on how thick you slice it. While alive, a shmoo will produce eggs, butter, fruit, and cake on the merest suggestion, and also make a wonderful pet and entertainer. Shmoos also apparently shag like rabbits. This presents a problem for America's capitalists: nobody needs their products or wages anymore. So they send out assassins to exterminate all shmoos.
It's wonderful to see the 1948 and the 1959 series back to back. The plot is similar in each case, but the flavor of each is distinctive. The first time shmoos appear, they are a threat to Gilded Age tycoons; this is an old-fashioned Progressive or New Deal parable. The second time, however, they are a threat to the military-industrial state. The president, who looks suspiciously like Eisenhower from the back, calls on the Pentagon to eliminate the threat.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 25, 2022
(my) 1585672165 is PAPERBACK by THE OVERLOOK PRESS
->Advance Reader's Edition = Uncorrected Proofs
{can an ISBN be shared by two publishers- one for the proof and the other for the final? If not, it needs changed from Abrams HC to above}
"Li'l Abner" is just as ... as I thought it would be but the charm he infuses into such things makes it endearing enough to appreciate as comedy worth smiles instead of reviles that are totally Americanbarassing. I absolutely enjoyed reading it and viewed the characters affectionately.
To the point of this cross-section of strips, what he uses the Shmoos to riff about is very intelligent commentary that's absolutely poignant and worth philosophizing over. He shows subversive skill in saying what needed to be said in an era where such anti-establishmentary blackballed those who had the stone cohones to try to nudge the masses out of our strongest era of reality hypnotism.
I'll leave it at that because you get the idea but urge you to read it even more-so due to it's unfortunate relevance to todays world order that's in the same sorts of disorder.
^I assume that Harlan Ellison's tangled ramble of an "introduction" -in which he doesn't get to what he's supposed to talk about until after a dose of anecdotery and a personal reminiscence about how he viewed communism as a boy until like the ninth page- got chopped up and down into something people would actually care to read. Then again, I know nothing about how advanced copies transition...
but what I do know is that he's a best-in-show caliber blowhard (who at least knows it) and takes pride in subjecting the reader to his whims of blabbermouthery. I'm not a sheep-reader that lets a writer have their way with me so he's not to my taste and avoided besides two-ish graphic novels. I can't imagine how arrogantly tinged his podcast must be.
->Advance Reader's Edition = Uncorrected Proofs
{can an ISBN be shared by two publishers- one for the proof and the other for the final? If not, it needs changed from Abrams HC to above}
"Li'l Abner" is just as ... as I thought it would be but the charm he infuses into such things makes it endearing enough to appreciate as comedy worth smiles instead of reviles that are totally Americanbarassing. I absolutely enjoyed reading it and viewed the characters affectionately.
To the point of this cross-section of strips, what he uses the Shmoos to riff about is very intelligent commentary that's absolutely poignant and worth philosophizing over. He shows subversive skill in saying what needed to be said in an era where such anti-establishmentary blackballed those who had the stone cohones to try to nudge the masses out of our strongest era of reality hypnotism.
I'll leave it at that because you get the idea but urge you to read it even more-so due to it's unfortunate relevance to todays world order that's in the same sorts of disorder.
^I assume that Harlan Ellison's tangled ramble of an "introduction" -in which he doesn't get to what he's supposed to talk about until after a dose of anecdotery and a personal reminiscence about how he viewed communism as a boy until like the ninth page- got chopped up and down into something people would actually care to read. Then again, I know nothing about how advanced copies transition...
but what I do know is that he's a best-in-show caliber blowhard (who at least knows it) and takes pride in subjecting the reader to his whims of blabbermouthery. I'm not a sheep-reader that lets a writer have their way with me so he's not to my taste and avoided besides two-ish graphic novels. I can't imagine how arrogantly tinged his podcast must be.
November 15, 2022
Did not realize I was in for an anti capitalist treat when I picked up this book
August 24, 2016
Back in high school, I was on a weekend bowling league with several friends. Occasionally, we'd also go bowling during non-league times (moonlight bowling, and such events). One particular friend (in fact, the friend who just gave me this book as a birthday gift), used to take great pleasure in trying to get me to drop my ball in the gutter by waiting til I was most of the way through my approach and then letting out a loud Shmoo laugh, a perfect imitation of the Shmoo from the cartoons then airing on Saturday morning that we all loved. And you know what? IT WORKED EVERY TIME.
So reading this collection of Al Capp's two original Shmoo storylines from the Lil Abner comic strips was a great trip down nostalgia lane. Or as great as such a trip can be when you can't recall ever having read the original strips. And having just turned 50, I guess maybe my memory IS going a little, because I really couldn't recall ever having read these strips before. My memory of the Shmoo is limited to the cartoons and to Eric Bauman's perfect imitation of that laugh.
So I really enjoyed learning (or relearning, if I actually did read these at some prior point and have just forgotten) how Abner found the Shmoo, how the Shmoo almost destroyed the world economy by making life perfect for everyone, and how the Sadie Hawkins Day Race saved the day. Twice, really. Capp's art is top-notch throughout, and the humor is exactly what I do remember from reading other Lil Abner strips.
If anything makes the book feel a bit awkward, it's that the strips are chopped up and laid out differently from the way they'd have appeared in the actual newspapers of the time. That's a minor complaint.
Oh, and there's a wonderful Harlan Ellison introduction that rambles far more than my introduction to this review does. I suppose you could skip Ellison's intro and just jump to the strips themselves, but a little bit of context mixed in with a lot of personal reminiscences can't hurt you, especially when he, like me in this review, eventually comes around to why the story of the Shmoo is so endearing: the darn things are just adorable. And Capp's use of them for commentary on capitalism, socialism and work ethic is just as valid in 2016 as it was when they debuted.
So reading this collection of Al Capp's two original Shmoo storylines from the Lil Abner comic strips was a great trip down nostalgia lane. Or as great as such a trip can be when you can't recall ever having read the original strips. And having just turned 50, I guess maybe my memory IS going a little, because I really couldn't recall ever having read these strips before. My memory of the Shmoo is limited to the cartoons and to Eric Bauman's perfect imitation of that laugh.
So I really enjoyed learning (or relearning, if I actually did read these at some prior point and have just forgotten) how Abner found the Shmoo, how the Shmoo almost destroyed the world economy by making life perfect for everyone, and how the Sadie Hawkins Day Race saved the day. Twice, really. Capp's art is top-notch throughout, and the humor is exactly what I do remember from reading other Lil Abner strips.
If anything makes the book feel a bit awkward, it's that the strips are chopped up and laid out differently from the way they'd have appeared in the actual newspapers of the time. That's a minor complaint.
Oh, and there's a wonderful Harlan Ellison introduction that rambles far more than my introduction to this review does. I suppose you could skip Ellison's intro and just jump to the strips themselves, but a little bit of context mixed in with a lot of personal reminiscences can't hurt you, especially when he, like me in this review, eventually comes around to why the story of the Shmoo is so endearing: the darn things are just adorable. And Capp's use of them for commentary on capitalism, socialism and work ethic is just as valid in 2016 as it was when they debuted.
February 11, 2013
approaching this collection felt a little like bad science - i had a conclusion i was ready to reach, and i just needed to find what i wanted to find. the best part is that it was better than i had hoped it would be. on top of that, the tone, the inventiveness and harlan ellison's intro have convinced me to take a step back and take a look at lil abner as a whole.
this feels like one of those moments. like when i heard delta blues for the first time. or the first time i watched a buster keaton movie. and maybe those are pretentious examples. i just mean to say that sometimes an artform has the ability to accomplish things that i never expected and can still leave me humbled.
wow. which is all to say, hey man, this is still just a sunday funny right? sure. so was calvin and hobbes
this feels like one of those moments. like when i heard delta blues for the first time. or the first time i watched a buster keaton movie. and maybe those are pretentious examples. i just mean to say that sometimes an artform has the ability to accomplish things that i never expected and can still leave me humbled.
wow. which is all to say, hey man, this is still just a sunday funny right? sure. so was calvin and hobbes
May 25, 2012
Great satire of American life.
August 28, 2016
A lovely trip down memory lane! My dad had a similar book back in the '60s.
May 18, 2015
When I was in college, I asked some friends: "Which would you rather not be biologically required to do, sleep or eat?" To my surprise, everyone said 'sleep', which makes me think either they were narrowly professionally ambitious for themselves or hadn't thought the consequences through, as a life not requiring food can largely be a life not requiring work and dedicated to other interests. Plus, sleeping is awesome.
This book devises a different scenario, where a single animal happily provides a wide variety of different foodstuffs, and the rippling effects of this as economic overlords lose their power. It's plenty funny seeing villains get it in the pants, but I didn't find how those social relationships developed further very well thought through and found it rather expedient. In fairness, the daily newspaper comic-strip can be very limiting in this regard, as even short stories take eons to tell.
There are any number of other factors which will help you enjoy the ride. There is a great voicing to the characters in terms of spelling and letter emphasis. There were a few later jokes, particularly the secret of "training method K", which I though really were well done.
In any case, I liked it fine and thought it was pretty good. A shout-out to Richard and Phyllis who made a shmoo reference and, when I didn't understand, produced the volume so I could get educated. Thanks!
This book devises a different scenario, where a single animal happily provides a wide variety of different foodstuffs, and the rippling effects of this as economic overlords lose their power. It's plenty funny seeing villains get it in the pants, but I didn't find how those social relationships developed further very well thought through and found it rather expedient. In fairness, the daily newspaper comic-strip can be very limiting in this regard, as even short stories take eons to tell.
There are any number of other factors which will help you enjoy the ride. There is a great voicing to the characters in terms of spelling and letter emphasis. There were a few later jokes, particularly the secret of "training method K", which I though really were well done.
In any case, I liked it fine and thought it was pretty good. A shout-out to Richard and Phyllis who made a shmoo reference and, when I didn't understand, produced the volume so I could get educated. Thanks!
November 6, 2015
An entertaining collection of L'il Abner cartoon strips about the schmoo, the happy little critter that produces milk, eggs, butter and other good stuff for free and if you look at it hungrily, it falls over dead with pleasure at the thought of being eaten. They taste like steak, chicken or pork, depending on how you cook them. They eat nothing and provide everyone's wants and while adored by the public are hated by business and government because they are destroying the American way of life - working hard, being good consumers and paying taxes.
I picked up the book because I thought it was an excellent example of the folly of protectionism as explained by the economist and satirist Frederic Bastiat. I used the schmoo in one of my blog posts,
Bastiat and the Schmoo.
The cartoon collection, while interesting and entertaining , was shorter than I expected, and not as biting satirically. But the schmoo remains a fascinating bit of American lore.
I picked up the book because I thought it was an excellent example of the folly of protectionism as explained by the economist and satirist Frederic Bastiat. I used the schmoo in one of my blog posts,
Bastiat and the Schmoo.
The cartoon collection, while interesting and entertaining , was shorter than I expected, and not as biting satirically. But the schmoo remains a fascinating bit of American lore.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews